I Don't Want to Talk About It. - movie reviews

National Review, Oct 24, 1994 by John Simon

The Argentine filmmaker Maria Luisa Bemberg has a fascinating life story. Born in 1925 into one of Buenos Aires's richest families, she had her creative instincts pretty nearly stifled by parents, marriage, and multiple motherhood, and by entrenched social conventions. It was not until her divorce in middle age that she could fully embrace the theater, and not until she turned 56 that she shot her first film. Since then, she has made several movies, rather more provocative than good, but at least noteworthy for their daring.

Her current I Don't Want to Talk about It concerns worldly, mature man's passionate love for a midget, and Miss Bemberg acquired the story before she had found the midget actress. Alas, she had to settle for a dwarf, of no great looks or talent. And, as director and co-writer, Miss Bemberg is unable to persuade us that, in a small Argentine town circa 1930, a dashing middle-aged Italian and a tiny intellectual overprotected by a strong mother could form the kind of privileged relationship leading to marriage. Especially since the attractive and energetic Luisina Brando, who plays the mother, is also available to our hero. And what a hero: Marcello Mastroianni, as winning as ever, and surely more likely to choose a nubile mom than a toothy dwarf.